


Sticking to the Plan

by Duck_Life



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gay Male Character, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Character, compulsory heterosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: The reason Kitty left Piotr at the altar finally comes to light, and she just wants to hide from the world. Bobby shows up to talk to her anyway.





	Sticking to the Plan

A couple of the tween students decided they wanted a treehouse in one of the Central Park trees around the back of the school. They’d all traipsed off to the hardware store to buy materials, just like in “Little Rascals.” (Anole chaperoned, and also ended up paying for all the hardware with an X-credit card Storm had lent him.) The kids drew up plans and divvied up responsibilities, and then they set to the task of building their own treehouse. It’s about halfway done now.

Anyway, that’s where Kitty got the planks, nails and hammer she needed to board up her bedroom door. 

It was silly, really. It wasn’t like some boards and nails were really going to keep anyone out, not when half the people in this school had super strength and teleportation and a shitload of other abilities. But something about it feels good, being able to pound hammer to nail and lock out the rest of the world. There’s something visceral and real in sealing herself in the room like she’s in an old zombie movie. 

Except for the occasional jiggle on the doorknob or concerned voice floating through the wood, Kitty gets her alone time. She sits balled up on her bed, with her hands wrapped around her knees, trying to ignore the hell of the past couple days. Weeks, really. Ever since the would-be wedding, she’s felt like she’s walking on splintering ice, just waiting for it to crack.

And now she’s thrashing around in bone-chillingly cold water. 

Speaking of, she notices a pool of water starting to seep beneath the crack in her door. Her immediate thought is that the hot water reservoir must be leaking— this damn building. But then the water pools in her room and expands, rematerializes as one Bobby Drake. She stares at him in silence for a moment before he says, “I can’t believe I had to find out from  _ Goldballs _ that you were gay.”

Kitty scowls, remembering using those exact words on him months ago. “Bobby…” she sighs, feeling lost and adrift. “I’m not gay. I— I’m…” But her heart is pattering too fast and her head is spinning and she feels like she’s falling, falling, falling. Suddenly Bobby’s there to catch her, dropping onto the bed and wrapping his arms around her. 

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” he soothes. “I promise I didn’t come here to make fun of you.” 

“It’s so stupid,” she says, her voice strained as she fights back tears. “It’s so stupid. It was just some kid… girl in Philly with psychic abilities. I went with Storm and Kurt and some of the kids… just to calm her down, tell her about us. This kid, she takes everyone else’s thoughts and projects them. As like, images and sounds, not just in your head. She picked up on my… conflict. All this crap in my head I just want to shove back down. And now everyone knows, and… and this kid can’t control her power or anything, so it’s not like I can even be angry.”

“You can be angry,” Bobby swears. “You can be angry, that’s okay. That’s your reaction. You think I wasn’t pissed at the 16-year-olds who forced me out of the closet? It’s okay if you’re angry.”

She leans heavier on him. “I’m not gay,” Kitty says again. “I mean… I don’t know. I have these… feelings. I’ve always had them. And it’s like, if I just focus on one man I can love, one man I can feel good about, then I never have to deal with all the other stuff. A-and I’d see other people, like you and Jean-Paul, or, God, these fucking kids. Roxy, Cessily, Victor. I’d see them come out and be brave and deal with all this shit. And I’d think to myself, ‘That’s for them but it doesn’t have to be for me. Because I can fall in love with men. Because I have that option, so I’m just going to do it.’” 

Bobby listens, trying to be supportive, trying to be a good friend. He’s always been good at that. “You could let yourself, you know,” he says. “You could let yourself think about those other feelings. Even… even follow them. I spent too long thinking I couldn’t; I don’t want you to go through that any more.”

“You wanna hear something that’s gonna make you hate me?”

“Too late,” Bobby grins. “I already hate you.”

Kitty plows ahead. “I wanted to marry Piotr… well, for one thing, because he’s nice. He’s my friend. I knew that if I had to be with a guy for the rest of my life, he was the best choice. It made sense. But… but I also knew that if I married him… I would get to stay close with  _ her _ .”

“Illyana?” 

She nods. “I think if I married anyone else, she and I would have to stop being friends. My husband, he’d see her, he’d see us. And he’d know. With Piotr… I figured he’d always be too close to pick up on it. That, or he’d know and he’d just... let us be happy.” She shudders. “I haven’t been really happy in… in too long. Everything’s just wrong. I had a plan, you know? It was a good plan. Join the X-Men, lead the X-Men… nab a degree somewhere around there. Marry a great guy, kick ass together. I had this plan. I came so close to just going through with it.”

Bobby tilts them both back on the bed until they’re lying down, looking up at the ceiling. “You’re an X-Man,” he reminds her. “We can’t ever plan for anything.”

“You know how I don’t want kids?” Bobby hums an affirmative. “Well… I think I would’ve done it. For Piotr. For The Plan. I would have had babies I didn’t want just to prove how normal I was. How fucked up is that? I was ready to subject a child to that, just so I could keep being this person.”

Bobby hugs her close to him, not sure what to say. As usual, a joke comes out. “This is nice,” he says. “You and me, we should give it another try. Let’s just forget about the whole queer thing and go for it.”

“Bobby,” Kitty mumbles, rolling her eyes even with her face pressed against his shoulder. 

“No, I’m serious,” Bobby continues, in a voice that suggests he’s definitely not serious. “Solve all our problems. And I know Mom would love it if I brought home a nice Jewish girl.” 

Kitty tilts her head back, her cheek pressed into the soft cotton of his t-shirt. At this angle, she can see the line of his jaw jutting up toward the ceiling. “You’re not attracted to me,” she points out.

“Nope,” Bobby agrees. “Sorry Kit-Kat. Not attracted to you at all.” He curls his arm tighter around her shoulders. “Are you attracted to me?”

She shrugs, which is hard to do when she’s half-lying on him. “I tried to be,” she admits. “I tried with Piotr. I tried with Quill. I thought I could just suck it up and get married and then…” She laughs bleakly. “You know what’s funny? I thought… we’ll get married, we’ll hold it together for a few years, and then I’ll get stuck in space or he’ll get stuck in the Savage Land and I won’t have to keep up the act anymore.” She makes a noise somewhere between laughing and crying. “How fucked up is  _ that _ ? He’s one of my oldest friends, and I was just like, ‘Oh, maybe something horrible will happen to him.’”

“I used to  _ hope _ Lorna would end up with Alex.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No?” Bobby says, tipping his head down. “Getting trapped in the Savage Land, dating Alex Summers… I can’t even decide which fate is worse.” Kitty laughs. “Can I say something?”

“Usually you don’t ask permission.”

“Yeah, well this might be kind of big,” Bobby says. 

“Go for it.”

“Making yourself like guys… isn’t the same as liking them,” Bobby says slowly. “And I don’t think your hair is the only thing that’s been pretending to be straight for too long.”

“You’re right,” Kitty says in a small voice. “Damn, I hate it when you’re right.”

“Now what?”

Kitty looks at her boarded-up door and then back at Bobby. “I’m just going to stay in here forever,” she says. “Will you bring me food and let me know stuff like when the school’s under attack?” 

“No,” Bobby says, not unkindly. “I know coming out of the closet fucking sucks. But eventually you’re gonna have to come out of your room.”

“Times like this, I kinda wish there was another big bullet I could climb inside and just hide from the rest of the world.”

“You have to face it eventually.”

“Really?” Kitty frowns. “Tough love?”

“Just love,” Bobby says. “Just love.”

Kitty sighs. “You think I’m gonna be okay?”

“Well, I’m not a precog,” Bobby says. “But you’re still Kitty fuckin’ Pryde. So I think you’re gonna be okay.” 

She smiles. “Yeah, I think you might be right,” she says. And then— “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you like this, when you… when all this was happening to you.” 

“You’re here now,” Bobby says. “That’s all that matters.” 

Maybe it is. For now, maybe that’s all that matters. 

 


End file.
